Friday, August 25, 2017

Project Runway: Recycled Teams

You know I love overanalyzing a team challenge. It's episode 2, but I think it's important to remember that we've had a week to think on these folks and they are probably in day 4, so like they barely remember where the bathrooms are.

They were taken to a recycling plant and given five minutes to shop, right after they'd been split into teams that, yeah, totally placed the twins on the same team. (We'll talk about that.) They grabbed things, they went back to discuss things, and team beach resort basically worked like professionals and ended up safe, so while I am seeing promising things in Margarita, we are going to ignore all of them this week.

Team Ballin' With a Budget had Aaron, Ayana, Batani, Brandon, and Kenya, so two highs and a low from last week, and a very large range of styles which is hard in a challenge where they want you to make something cohesive and yet representative of your own style.

Team Tsunami had Amanda, Amy, Sentell and the twins - Shawn and Clare. Now look, I hate referring to twins as a single entity, they are distinct people and they deserve to be treated as such, but they are doing nothing to help this and still appear to be giving mannequin interviews together, and they are sharing an apartment. Basically, short of going to the bathroom together, I don't know how they could be spending more time together, and we saw this on "Top Chef" where there was a wife and wife team together. Unless they are planning to get eliminated together in a double elimination, one of them is going home earlier than the other, and they need to be ready.

Okay, like I said at the top, it's day 4, they are still working on their coping as the reality of the thing hits them.

Team BwB got a troubling lack of cohesiveness from their Tim critique so revamped some stuff and actually created a great collection. If you didn't know it was made of recyclables you wouldn't be shocked or anything, but you would nod, and say that's so cool. It was nice to see Batani be forced out of safe mode, and hopefully she will stay there. And Kenya struggled, but got it together and still seems so surprised to get praise that I want to hug her though the TV. I personally think Brandon and Aaron are kind of skating, but, their team was the best this week, so there we go. I was thrilled to see Ayana win. She's right that fun, fashionable, and modest is a gap in the market, and if she keeps making fun stuff like this, it will be a great season.

Team Tsunami - Shawn was thrown, still seemingly confused and doubting from having been in the bottom last week, and her team was all ready with ideas, so she kept nodding and smiling, in a way she seemed to think was convincing. Amanda quietly asked Claire if she thought there was something the team could do to help. Claire then kept talking to Shawn, and as Amy noted they just seemed to be feeding off each other's negativity. Sentell tried to give Shawn a pep talk and their Tim critique went okay although Claire and Shawn still had no clothing pieces, but the team had great suggestions every time an issue was raised. Which is to say, it seemed like a team with skills and plans to fix things.

But alas, "Project Runway" teams generally need all their members to recover and Sentell in particular seemed to let concern about Shawn distract him from his outfit. It's possible his outfit still would have been terrible, but it created the classic "Project Runway" conundrum, we the audience knew Shawn had been an anchor to her team, but her outfit also looked better than Sentell's. And in the end it is supposedly about the clothes.

Sentell, sensing the way the wind was blowing in their post-runway discussion, did mention that he helped with Shawn's top. Oh, and Shawn. Shawn, Shawn, Shawn. You referenced having watched "Project Runway" which means you know that into every season comes so-called real women. So, sure, you didn't know you were getting a "curvy" model, and doing something new with recyclables is a challenge. But it is something everyone on your team is dealing with. It is also something that in this season will happen again. So, saying you're not good at designing for people of size translates to, I am unprepared for handling the challenges this show will provide. Also, who do you think watches this show? Your future customers. Guess what size they are likely to be? You worked for Betsy Johnson and I know she makes clothes larger than a size 2.

And as guest judge Maggie Q pointed out, the model wasn't even plus sized. (I think Shawn was trying to be sensitive in her terminology, but they posted the model's measurements, and basically, she was what I have come to understand the industry calls a swimwear model. She was tall and slim, but she had definable breasts and hips.)

The team each got asked who the weakest link was, they all picked Shawn except the ones who had a sister standing on stage. But Sentell went home.

I don't think this was producer intervention, Sentell's outfit was legit the worst this time. But Shawn and Claire have to figure out how to separate themselves or go down together soon.